Okay, I’m already kind of regretting this. To put it in the easiest way possible, after reading through a few pages, it is easy to see just how much my writing has improved over the last decade. Did I write that? What were my naming conventions? Oh God, could those have really been my naming conventions? Did I use that word in that context? Did I even know what that word *meant*? Did I really think that metaphor was clever enough to drag it out that long? Was I *proud* of this? I must have been, and so I feel I must be now.

So here goes, despite my better judgement, and with no editing aside from some formatting to better fit the blog medium:

—–

I WALK IN

PART ONE: AYUMA AND MOLLY

Danny got home from school. Not much was happening for him this year: he didn’t get any of the electives he wanted, which meant he barely had any classes with his friends, and the mandatory subjects Langston High offered that year( the main ones like English and Math) each had a dozen different classes, and of course, Danny knew nobody in any of his.

The couch felt good after a terrible first day of introductions and explanations and lectures he had already heard a half dozen times at the beginning of every year and went on for half the class. Nothing much changed from the previous years, aside from the fact that there wasn’t anybody he could joke with while near-senile teachers read from a 40 year old script that even included emergency procedures in case of a Soviet nuclear attack.

“Yeah, those damn commies won’t stop, even years after the Iron Curtain fell” Danny muttered as he reached under the couch cushions for the remote. Looking through his favorite stations, he noticed there were no good shows on. “New and improved Fall Lineup, my ass.” He was in a very sarcastic mood today.

I walk in. I notice the way Danny’s life is going and I try to fix it, because that’s what I do: I walk in on a life and I fix it. My name is Ayuma and I fix the lives of those who need it.

***

Danny left hte school in a huff. He was really annoyed at his new schedule and couldn’t do anything to fix it. Walking home, he found a rock that sort of looked like Principal Shearer’s head when you squint really hard, so he threw it down the street as hard as he could.

Looking around for his friends, he noticed that there was nobody else on the street at all. It was rush hour, less than a quarter mile from the school, and absolutely nobody was on the street. It didn’t make any sense!

I walk in. I notice the way Danny’s life is going and I try to fix it, because that’s what I do: I walk in on a life and I fix it. My name is Ayuma and I fix the lives of those who need it.

***

Danny gets into his bedroom and closes the door behind him. First thing he does is stick a CD in his stereo and blast the volume full force. There’s only one way to bead the pressure of having a terrible day, and that’s by going dead.

Flopping onto the bed, Danny stares at the popcorn of the ceiling and thinks about what happened that day: how shocked he was when he saw his schedule, how pissed off he was when he saw his friends’, how boring the first day of school always is, and anything else that came to mind. His thoughts wandered and he began to go into a dreamlike state, and he barely knew where he was.

I walk in. I notice the way Danny’s life is going and I try to fix it, because that’s what I do: I walk in on a life and I fix it. My name is Ayuma and I fix the lives of those who need it.

***

“No, this isn’t working.” Molly had been trying one of her ‘fake interventions” again, which consisted of taking real life situations and trying to make a story out of them. She called them “fake interventions” because they were fake and because she only did them for people whose lives looked like they needed it. Ayuma was Molly’s intervening tool, a sort of spirit that represented Molly’s character in an intervention who had special abilities that normal humans just can’t have. It was a way for Molly to be in the situation without actually dealing with the person.

Molly never really talked to Danny that much, but she was in every single one of his classes this year an she noticed the wasn’t acting like himself. That was why the intervention wasn’t working: she had no idea what Danny was like. This wasn’t the first time she didn’t know the subject of an intervention, and usually Molly forgot about the intervention if she couldn’t seem to find the solution after one or two tries, but somehow, Danny was different. She’d started at 4:15, and she had gotten nowhere in over an hour. Danny was like a nut that you really want to crack, but you really have no tools aside from a pebble and a stick. Other nuts were either easier to crack or didn’t hold enough interest to be of value, but Danny’s nut had some kind of draw to it.

“This is going to drive me crazy until I get it, I just know it is. I’m going to have to get to know him, talk to him, then maybe I can finish up the intervention,” Molly decided,” Now, what was his last name? Rather? No, that’s the guy from TV. Shorn. That’s gotta be it!” Molly had gotten the phone book at this point and was already searching through the “S” area of the phone book. Luckily, there was only one Shorn in Langston, so Molly didn’t have to go through the embarrassing process of “sorry, wrong number”-ing. As she dialed the phone, she thought about what she might possibly say to whoever answered. She just realized she had no idea what she was about to do.

One ring. No answer.

Two rings. No answer.

Three rings. No answer.

Four rings. No an- wait, someone’s picking up!

“Hey” came the voice across the line.

“Hi, um, can I please speak with Danny?”

“Ya, can I tell him who’s callin’?”

“Umm, sure, I’m Molly. From school.”

In the background, Molly could hear “Hey, dipwad, your girlfriend’s on the phone” and the response: “Shut up, retard”

“Hey, this is Danny”

“Hi, I’m” Molly realized she had no idea what she was about to say, “that girl who sits next to you in Science class.” Nope, not the ideal she wanted. Now she was just “that girl”

“Oh, Molly, yeah, I noticed we’re in all our classes together, if it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have noticed you at all, ya know?” ok, at least he knew who Molly was.

“Yeah, that’s me. I don’t want to sound stupid, and I’m not coming on to you, I’m really not, but I’d like to get together some time.” Did those words really come out of her mouth? That easily?

“Actually, that makes sense. If we’re gonna be together in all our classes, we may as well know each other.” Whew, at least he didn’t think Molly was a pervert.

“Awesome, how far away are you from Vista Point?” Vista Point was the local “teen hangout” place. There was a cafe, a 4-screen movie theater that had surprisingly good selection despite the size, a few shops like the Gap and Foot Locker, and there was also a sort of food court area in teh courtyard connecting all the adjacent stores. Molly was planning to meet at the food court.

“Actually, I live just down the block from there. You wanna meet at the cafe?”

“Um, yeah, sure, why not?” was he coming on to her? “It’s 5:15 now, how does 5:30 sound to you?”

“Ehhh,” he said with a drawn out sigh, “my dad has a cow if I’m not done with my homework before I leave the house, I can make it there in about an hour.”

“Ok, then see you in an hour.” And they both hung up.

***

Molly made it to the cafe by 6:00, just to be safe. She had 15 minutes to wander around aimlessly before Danny was supposed to be there. Maybe she’d see one of her friends in one of the stores. She knew Lauren really liked the GAP, so Molly went there first. Down by the jeans rack, looking over some of the pants, there she was. Molly sneaked up behind a table of shirts and waited for Lauren to walk out.

“3…” she thought to herself “2…1…” and as she jumped out, she yelled “BOO!”

5 Responses to I Walk In, Part 1: Ayuma and Molly

This really grabbed me.
I really like the initial premise – intervening the life of somebody who’s just plain regular bummed out and not dealing well. Both Ayuma, who would intervene “in the flesh,” and Molly who only imagines it, but is still deeply concerned about the people she sees, and goes to such lengths to wish them well.

I don’t know if that’s the direction you’re taking it, but it worked for me.

Okay, now you’ve got me wanting to finish up at least part 2, if only to answer your questions. For now all I can say is “yes and no.” The underlying theme remains constant, but the narrative… uh… well you’ll see in part 2 :-p.